Hallo, Jonathan Wilkes hat gesagt: // Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
I agree that meta-messages should be called meta-messages, if they're called anything. But I don't see how to make the distinction clear without having a comprehensive table of relevant pd-vanilla objects and their behavior regarding meta-messages. Why do the first inlets of pack and symbol accept [pitch( ? Why wouldn't the secondary inlets of pack and symbol accept [pitch( ?
Or their behaviour regarding data messages: Why doesn't the first inlet of float accept symbol-messages? *Of course* you have to learn each object's behaviour to be able to use it. But if nobody tells you that there's a difference between "pitch" and "symbol pitch" many of the object's behaviour will seem arcane to you.
In fact I believe, that beginners have difficulites to understand messages because their tutors ignore these issues. Maybe they ignore them because they themselves feel uncomfortable with messages, meta-messages, symbols and other magic things - and a tutor needs to understand a topic in a much deeper way than his student.
But people are way too scared of meta-messages. They are nothing special. If you understand the difference between "symbol"- and "float"- messages, there is no problem understanding the difference between a "float"- and a "set"-message or between a "symbol" and a "read"-messages. And you surely are using these messages all the time.
Why does the second inlet of [list] accept [pitch( but the first inlet of [makefilename %s] doesn't?
[list] objects accept everything and convert all incoming messages to data messages, i.e. to list-messages. [list trim] converts back to meta messages.
How do message-box dollar signs handle meta-messages?
They take the first element as selector, and then start counting from there.
How does [list length] handle them?
See above: Like all [list]-objects it first converts to a list.
Do you need [list trim] to route a float list by the first value?
No but it doesn't hurt.
Ciao
Frank